Trump is already fundraising off Stephen Breyer's retirement

Former President Donald Trump's fundraising team lost no time in capitalizing on Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer's reported plan to retire at the end of the current term.

"BREAKING: A SUPREME COURT JUSTICE IS RETIRING," read a fundraising text sent out just hours after news of Breyer's intentions broke. "Biden will appoint a LIBERAL ACTIVIST. Pres Trump activated an EMERGENCY 5X-IMPACT."

Politico White House correspondent Eugene Daniels shared a screenshot of the text on Twitter.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Breyer, 83, is the oldest member of the Supreme Court, having been nominated by former President Bill Clinton in 1994. His retirement will allow President Biden to name a nominee to the Supreme Court, maintaining the court's current ideological balance for the near future.

Trump has frequently been mocked and criticized for the forceful tone of his fundraising messages.

In an August piece for The Spectator World headlined "I think Donald Trump's email team is trying to murder me," Matt Purple wrote that "people who give small amounts to political campaigns are generally decent sorts and deserve better than to be bullied by a team of tinpot PR henchmen leaning on the caps lock."

A New York Times report published a few months earlier revealed a darker side to Trump's fundraising machine. According to the Times, in September 2020 fundraising company WinRed began "to set up recurring donations by default for online donors, for every week until the election. Contributors had to wade through a fine-print disclaimer and manually uncheck a box to opt out."

As the election neared, the Times report continued, "the Trump team … introduced a second prechecked box, known internally as a 'money bomb,' that doubled a person's contribution."

Trump's campaign had to pay more than $60 million in refunds — more than 10 times the amount Biden's campaign paid back — but was able to cover the costs with money raised after the election to "Stop the Steal."